Palestinian Spring Story

The following event took place between the 4th and the 23ed of April, 2002. These account is just a line from the biggest chapters of the Palestinian second Intifada.
The April massacre as we calls it, or Operation defensive shield as the Israeli military calls it, played a major role in forming the image of Israel in my mind for years.

Tanks at one of the old city entrances

In Tuesday night as we heard the tanks rolling into the city, my mom insisted on all of us sleeping in my parents bedroom, she was worried the Israeli would open fire randomly on the houses. "They did it before, what will stop them now". 

I put my mattress in my parents bedroom, and sit everything for my evening read, I was reading the Arabic translation of "Ten days that shook the world" John reed account on October revolution,1917. 20 minutes later I decided to sleep. 

I tried to sleep, but the sound of the tanks rolling stimulated my imagination, I draw many mental images of the tanks, fighters, bombs, and even battles scenarios. Men wearing green uniforms setting their anti-tanks canons, waiting for tanks approaching from the western bank of the river..... wait.. What river? Damn communist literature.

Around med night, the Apache helicopters showed up in the sky, didn't to see them, it was hard to see anything in complete darkness. Minutes after their arrival flares filled the sky, then a small light appeared followed with a hissing sound. The first rocket was launched on a barricade in on of Nablus main streets!
3 hours later, around 2AM, I am still awake, my mom woke up on the sound of a rocket being lunched, "it's ok son, it's just a rocket" she said!

"It's the 13th" I said before I turns around and sleep 

  

In 25th of April, after the Israeli left the city, I went back to the small streets of the old city where I grow up. Trying to discover my hometown after the fascist forces added their touch. The amount of destruction was over whelming. It looked like nothing survived the attack intact. everything, everyone was hurt.  

Life log 06

In late September 2002, we started going to school again despite the curfew, which was imposed by the Israeli army. We went to school risking our own lives, as we could have stumbled on an Israeli tanks or soldiers paroling the streets. We would walk 2 or 3 km to avoid them, yet we were caught sometimes.

One day we were coming back from a long day at school, when the driver in the bus announced, “there is a checkpoint ahead, I am going to drop you here, and you can walk through the mountain.” When he finished his announcement, I looked to my new shoes, and then to my friends “I am not walking through the mountains, I am going through the checkpoint!” all of my friends agreed to go with me but two.

We walked confidently to the soldiers expecting to pass in 10 minutes, 20 minutes top. We walked down the streets, for a while before a few soldiers showed up at the gate of a building 100m away from the tanks, they asked us to stop, and to hand them our IDs if we had any.  

The soldiers asked us to follow them. Confidently we followed them as we expected that they were going to lets us go in a minute or two. The soldiers took us to a wider side walk, in front of a building containing warehouses in the ground floor and apartments in the first and second floor. They asked us to stand. Then, 40 minutes later, another soldiers came by and said, "everybody sit now." 

They took our IDs around 2:30pm, we were released at 9:00pm. We were forced to sit in the cold, with 3 soldiers standing guard. We weren't allowed to talk or even to look at each other, every person who dared to talk, move or look to anyone around him would be punished by having to stand on his knees in the street with his hands behind his neck.

We stayed there for hours before soldiers showed some mercy and let all the kids under the age of 16 leave, leaving me and another 20 high school students on the streets. We stayed, looking down at the street, until someone came up with a fun small game: throwing small stones on the soldiers standing guard! The soldiers didn't get our sense of humor. They ended up forcing us all to stand against the wall, with our hands behind our heads. For the next 2 hours I thought of nothing but expecting one of us to be shot in the head by the soldiers. I didn't feel safe until one soldier called my name to give me my ID back, while telling with a hand gesture that I was allowed to go.

This story burly represent 1% of the Palestinian people suffering, yet it help explaining the collective punishment policies the Israeli adopted to deal withe the Palestinian population. later that night curfew was imposed, we would return to school 2 weeks after.

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Life log 01

I thought about this as a way to force myself to blog more often. From now on I am going to blog 20 incidents that helped me in becoming the person that I am today. So, allow me to start with this one.

I was born in the city of Nablus and grew up in my family house, which is located in the old city. Being born in 1986, I grew up in one of the hottest spots of the first Intifada. This has affected me directly; I can't deny that my very first memories were on Palestinian shabab covering their faces with Kuffyas and on soldiers sitting in their green uniforms in my family house's yard to cool down.

One of those memories, bring me back to a day, when the narrow streets of my neighborhood were nearly empty. Tension was high..as someone we all knew had just died(Estashhad). No one told me anything; who cares about informing a 7 years old, anyway.

I climbed the stairs back home to ask mom what was going on, while my cousins stayed downstairs. Mom was....(I seriously can't remember anything about her at this moment) I remember going down the stairs again, but the yard was full of people. They opened the Diwan(the family meeting room, where they held all kinds of ceremonies) they took a mattress and put it on a metal door, then I remember how they put someone on it. They carried the metal door with the body on it to other side of the yard and stood in lines in front of it, (Later I learned it was Salah Al Mayet "The dead prayer").

I was pushed away, but I managed to find a corner from where I could watch the whole scene.
His mother was crying while her daughters and my mom were trying to comfort her, all of their attempts went in vain. As soon as the young men finished their prayers and started to get ready to carry him away. His family said the final goodbyes. And in a few second the yard was empty. As I walked to the gate, I asked my older cousin, "where is Nasha'at going?"

Nasha'at Herron was the name of a guy, a Palestinian activist in the first Intifada. He was killed by an Israeli Special unit, who shot him in his knees and left him bleeding to death.

On the metal door they carried his body. They carried him on the same door he had used to jump from one roof to another to escape the soldiers.

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PS: This is a story of many stories that made the person that I am today, the text above is from my memory, although i miss some details, I do remember the emotion in peoples faces. If you want to learn more, please contact me, so I can gather further details.